Chapter Four
Morgan tread water in a well of grief. She couldn’t sink, couldn’t allow herself to just go under. She had to talk to the police again. Answer questions, make formal statements. It kept the grief fresh and the water in the well deep.
Nina’s family had become her family, and she couldn’t help them if she sank. She sat with them, mourned with them, did her best to help with the funeral arrangements.
Both her bosses insisted she take a week off, and coworkers dropped off food. Casseroles, pasta dishes, ham, chicken.
She shared it with Sam. If he wasn’t with Nina’s family, he was with her.
He had his own well.
She sat with him while they both picked at the latest casserole.
“Still no word on your car?”
“No.” Since he’d brought wine as his contribution to the meal neither of them much wanted, she sipped at her glass. “I guess it’s gone. The cops don’t say that right out, but what they do say makes it pretty clear. I filed the insurance claim today.”
He gave her hand a sympathetic rub. “Nightmares?”
“Yeah, well.”
“Me, too. Offer’s still open for me to stay any night you want, or for you to bunk with me.”
“I know.”
“Or if you have a bad one, just call me.”
Now she rubbed his hand. “Same goes. Bill’s been great about lending me his car, but I need to start looking for one. Before I go back to work.”
“If you want help with that, just ask.”
“Thanks.”
She didn’t mention the insurance payoff would be a hell of a lot less than she’d paid for the car—already used and with significant mileage—minus her high deductible.
But that was a problem for another day.
“We finished packing up her room today. Nina’s sister and mother and I.”
He nodded, met her eyes. “I stopped to see her parents before I came over. The photos you helped them choose for the service are perfect.”
“They don’t blame me.”
“Because you’re not to blame.”
“My head knows that. Or it’s almost got that. But … I never, never imagined anyone breaking in here. Honestly, what did the son of a bitch get out of it? Even the car isn’t worth that much. If I’d put in better locks, or invested in an alarm system.”
“Stop.” This time he took her hand, held it. “Stop that. She texted me her boss sent her home—so we could say what if her boss hadn’t sent her home. We could say what if I’d come over to bring her some cold medicine, make her some soup or whatever. Plenty of what-ifs. But the fact is, nobody’s to blame but the person who did this. Nobody.”
Because she knew that, she nodded. And still.
“It was so hard to box up the last of her things, Sam, and take them out of her room. To go back in there alone, and there was nothing left of her there.”
“She loved living here with you. I knew I was going to have a hell of a time talking her into moving in with me because she loved living here with you.”
Tears rose into her throat, burned there. “You were going to ask her?”
“I was going to give it a little while longer.” With a half smile, he tapped the side of his head. “Strategy. I know we’d only gotten serious for a few weeks, but I’d been serious about her a lot longer.”
“She knew.”
“Did she?”
And in his eyes she saw the sorrow, as immeasurable as her own.
“Oh yeah. You weren’t a fling for her, Sam. It would’ve taken some convincing, some time, but she’d have said yes.”
“How are we going to get over her, Morgan? What are we going to do without her?”
“I have no idea. I think about how we painted her bedroom before she moved in. I only had this place a few weeks before she did, so Nina was here right from the start, really. She had that lilac paint in her hair, on her face by the time we’d finished.”
Morgan could see it, could see Nina, as clear as yesterday.
“And how she showed me how to plant flowers, and how she wouldn’t take no, and dragged me to my first Ramos family dinner.”
“Nothing like them.”
“She wanted to set me up with her brother, Rick.”
Sam swigged some beer. “Yeah, well. No.”
That teased a half laugh out of her tight throat.
“I remember the night she brought you into the Round so I could size you up.”
“We had tequila shots.”
“You did. And oh God, the night we made dinner. When I came home from work, she was standing right over there. The kitchen looked like she’d set off a bomb. She was wild-eyed because she’d successfully made the marinade for the chops.”
“It was a really good night.”
“An excellent night.”
He pushed more food around his plate. “You still haven’t heard from Luke?”
“I think, like my car, that’s gone. He never answered my text or call about Nina. Some people just don’t handle, or don’t want to handle emotional upheaval.”
She shrugged. “It’s good to know before things went anywhere.”
“He seemed like a really solid guy.”
“Transient—he was up front on that at the start. But solid in the moment.” She shrugged again. “Gone now. It doesn’t matter,” she said, and meant it. “He doesn’t matter.”
Before Sam left he checked the locks on the back door, as he always did.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Or I can pick you up, take you if you want.”
“I’ve got Bill’s car.”
“I’ve never been to a funeral Mass.”
“Me neither.” And even the idea had her stomach churning. “We’ll stick together.”
“Right.” He hugged her, as he always did. “Lock the door behind me.”
She knew he waited until he heard the locks click, just as she knew she’d obsessively check the back door locks again. Then the front door before she went to bed.
Alone, she walked into Nina’s empty room, where the cheerful walls showed their deeper shades where pictures had hung.
Flower posters—always flowers for Nina. And the faded square where she’d had her corkboard to pin up drawings from young cousins, her nieces and nephews. She’d pinned up notes to herself, appointment cards.
Nothing left but those shapes to say Nina Ramos lived here.
She’d have to get another housemate. She couldn’t really afford the mortgage and everything else without that income. But she didn’t know how she could bear having someone else in this room.
She shut off the light, closed the door, and told herself she’d deal with it because she had to.
At ten the next morning, she sat with Sam in a pew behind the rows of Nina’s family.
Her parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, some who’d traveled in from out of state and as far away as Mexico.
Family, friends, coworkers, others she’d gone to school with, customers from the garden center, packed the church. One of her cousins sang, and beautifully.
Though her sister gave the core eulogy, others spoke. Since Nina’s mother had asked Morgan to speak, she slid out of the pew, walked by the flower-draped casket, and talked of her friendship, talked of how Nina had helped her make her first home a home, taught her how to plant her first garden, had given her family when she’d been so far away from her own.
It was all like a dream, the ritual, the music, the flowers, the words—even her own words.
When it was done, she wondered why she felt no different than she had when it began. As she drove with the others to the cemetery, she thought that after the burial, after that ritual, those words, she’d feel some lessening of grief, some sense of closure—or the inching toward it.
But when again she sat beside Sam, this time gripping his hand as if she’d float away without that anchor, nothing changed. The priest said more words, and she sensed comfort in them even if she couldn’t feel it.
She felt the cool April air on her face, saw the green of the grass, the grays and white of marble headstones. The flowers, so many flowers for Nina.
Somewhere—not far—a bird sang.
The sun dashed off the polished wood of the coffin. It illuminated the blanket of white roses over it.
She thought of Nina inside it, in the pale pink dress her mother had chosen. They’d had no viewing, but Mama wanted her to wear the pink dress, to have a white rosebud in her hair.
But she wasn’t in there, Morgan realized. Nina wasn’t inside the silk-lined box in her pink dress with a rose in her hair.
She’d gone to wherever those who leave us go. She’d gone before Morgan had come home to find her lying on the floor.
Already gone.
Graves and stones and words and music weren’t for the dead, but the living they left behind.
Somehow, believing that, she allowed herself to sink, for a moment. For a moment, she pressed her face to Sam’s shoulder, let the grief take her under.
When she could breathe again, feel that cool spring air again, she’d inched, just a little, toward closure.
She embraced the family, one by one. She gave and exchanged condolences through a headache that came on like a storm.
As she walked back to Bill’s car, she thought, one more part. One more left in the ritual for the living. Back to the family home for food, for community.
It helped, more than she’d anticipated, that community. With the food, the drink, the tears, some laughter as people shared stories and memories.
Still, she slipped away after an hour as the headache raged and fatigue set in. She wanted nothing so much as to take off the black dress, one she knew she’d never wear again, then to lie down and sleep.
To be alone before she had to face what came after.
She’d have to face life again.
As she pulled into her driveway, two people got out of a car parked at the curb. She paused as they started up the walk in their black suits.
Not reporters, she thought. She’d learned to spot and avoid them over the last week.
More cops? she wondered. Insurance people?
Why now? What more did they want from her? What more could she say?
“Ms. Albright?” The male suit, graying hair, compact body, held up a badge. As did the woman, dark skin, hair in short, dark coils, deep brown eyes oddly cool.
“FBI Special Agents Morrison and Beck. Could we speak with you?”
As the headache pounded, pounded, Morgan stared at the identification. “FBI? I don’t understand.”
“We know you’ve had a difficult day, but if we could come in and explain.”
“It’s about Nina?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She felt that tiny inch toward closure slide away again.
“All right.” She led the way. “I’ve talked to the police, and gave a statement. I honestly don’t know anything else.”
She unlocked the door, went inside.
“I can make coffee,” she offered, only because she thought she should.
The woman—Beck—nodded slightly. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No, it’s okay. Sit down. It’ll only take a minute.”
Instead of sitting in the living room, Morrison followed her, stood just inside the kitchen. “You have a nice house.”
“Thank you.” She saw his gaze shift to the back door as she started the coffee. “Bill, my boss, fixed the door. The police—the detectives that came after the other police that day, and the crime scene people—they said it was okay to fix the broken glass and put in the dead bolt.”
“Of course.”
“It just had the thumb lock before. He broke the glass, and just reached in and flipped it open.”
“He?”
“He, she, they, I don’t know.”
“She was home unexpectedly from work?”
Again, she thought. She had to say it all again.
“They sent her home sick. She had a cold, and it got worse at work. The coworker who drove her home because her car was in the shop said they stopped so she could buy some DayQuil. She must’ve been in bed because the bottle was on the nightstand, and a box of tissues on the bed.”
She kept her hands busy, got out mugs, creamer, sugar, spoons, a tray.
She’d say it all again, she thought, then they’d go away so she could sleep.
“The detectives said it looked like he went to my office, either to start there or to hide there if he heard her. The house should’ve been empty, but it wasn’t. He was in there, and she walked in or started to, and he killed her.
“How many times do I have to say it?”
“Why don’t I take that tray in for you?”
She let him because she wanted to sit down. She wanted to sit and get this all over with.
Beck picked it up as soon as they walked in.
“You kept your car fob in the house. In plain view?”
“Yes, Jesus.” The reasonable part of her knew they did a job, but the rest of her just didn’t care.
“I said all this, too. I kept it in that bowl by the door. Come in, put it in the bowl, always know where it is. He thought the house would be empty—that’s what the detectives think.”
Struggling, she pressed her fingers to her eyes.
Just get it over with.
“He broke in, killed Nina because she was here. He took her jewelry and mine—not worth much—I had a hundred in cash rolled in a sock, he got that and whatever cash she had in her drawer. It wouldn’t have been much. He took her MacBook and her phone. No point in taking my laptop, since it broke when he broke her. It was five years old anyway, and not worth much. Then he took the fob out of the bowl and drove away in my car.
“I don’t know anything else.”
Beck opened a slim briefcase, took out a photo. “Do you recognize this man?”
His hair was longer and sort of carelessly, stylishly windblown, but otherwise …
The headache rolled nausea into her belly.
“Luke Hudson.”
“How do you know him?”
“He came into the bar where I work nights, about three weeks ago. The Next Round. He came into the bar. I tend bar. He wanted a local draft, struck up a conversation. He said he was in the area for a few months. IT work, smart homes and offices.”
Because her hands shook, she slid them under her thighs. “But that’s not true, is it? Or you wouldn’t be here. Did he do this? I don’t understand how that could be. Did he do this?”
“Was he ever in here?” Morrison, ignoring the question, pushed on. “In your house?”
“Once. We had dinner. Me, Nina, him, and Sam—Nina was seeing Sam Nichols. We had them over for dinner the … the … the…”
She paused, pressed her lips together. “The Monday night before she died. My night off.”
Beck wrote something in a notebook. Morgan began to rub her hands over arms that had chilled.
“I … He came into the bar a few times. Had local drafts, some food, conversation. He was friendly, but not pushy. He talked with some of the other customers. After he came in a few times, he asked me to dinner. Casual, pizza, and I decided why not? I met him at Luigi’s and we had pizza and wine.”
“Did you have a sexual relationship?”
She looked at Beck. “No. He came into the bar a handful of times. We had pizza one night, and Nina and I decided to have him and Sam to dinner—Monday’s my night off. I said that already,” she remembered. “I have Sunday and Monday nights off unless we’re short-staffed at the bar.”
“So he came to dinner,” Morrison prompted.
“Yes.” She tucked her hands under her thighs again. “We cooked—the first time either of us made a real dinner. And he had a change in his schedule, he said, and had to do a job in Baltimore, two or three days. He texted me a few times while he was gone.”
“Did he leave the room where you were, the three of you were, at any point?”
“No, we…” She pulled her hands free, pressed her fingers to her eyes again. Now the headache lived there, too.
“Yes. Yes, he did. He asked if he could wash up. The half bath is down there.” She gestured. “When he came back, he apologized for taking so long, said he got a call he had to take.”
“How long was he gone?”
“I don’t know. We were drinking wine, talking, and … Wait. Wait.”
She shoved her hands through her hair. “Asparagus. I think … Yes, nearly ten minutes. Did he do this? Who is he? Why would he do this? For a MacBook and a used Prius? That’s crazy.”
“His name is Gavin Rozwell, and this is what he does. He’s a psychopath, a con artist, a serial killer. And you, Ms. Albright, are his type.”
“I’m his type? What type?”
“Slender blonde, single, between the ages of twenty-four and thirty. The androgynous name’s a plus.”
She heard the words as Beck spoke them, but they seemed to come out in some strange, foreign language. “What?”
“It makes it simple for him to steal your identity and become Morgan Albright. He would have selected you, researched you before he walked into that bar.”
“Still crazy,” she insisted. “Why would he want to steal my identity? I’m nobody. I don’t have anything.”
“You have this house,” Morrison pointed out. “You had a car. You work two jobs, so you’re bound to have a bank account.”
“And first and foremost,” Beck added, “he enjoys it. Do you have any credit cards?”
“I have one. I use it primarily for food and gas, pay it off monthly. It’s good to build my credit rating.”
“He’s likely run that up, opened at least one more, and run that to its limit. Do you bank online?”
“Yes. My work schedule…”
“Have you checked your bank account in the last week?”
“No. Why would I? We just buried Nina. Today. We buried Nina today.”
“Could you check it now?”
She nearly got up to go to her office and laptop before she remembered. And took out her phone.
What color she had left in her face leached away. “This can’t be right. It can’t be. It says I have less than two hundred dollars. I had over twelve thousand, just over. I’ve been saving for years. This is a mistake.”
“It’s cyber theft, Ms. Albright. I’m sorry,” Morrison went on. “It’s likely worse. You’re a homeowner, and that’s something he targets. It’s very likely he used your identity and the information he got off your computer to take out equity loans, maybe a business loan. He’d have used lending companies rather than banks, agreed to a higher interest rate for the quick turnaround. The malware he likely installed on your computer in that ten minutes allowed him to channel access to your accounts.”
“He’s very skilled in this area,” Beck continued. “It’s probable he got into the house—he wouldn’t have broken the window initially. He would have uninstalled the malware and walked out again. But Ms. Ramos was here, she saw him. He staged the break-in, took your valuables, the cash on hand to cover the rest.”
“Ms. Albright.” Morrison waited until her glazed eyes shifted to his face. “We’ve very sorry for what’s happened to you. Very sorry for what happened to your friend. My partner and I have been after Rozwell for years. What happened here didn’t immediately get our attention, as Ms. Ramos isn’t his usual type, his target type. She was petite, dark hair, her name, no homeownership, and the clumsy burglary. Then an article came up in a search and mentioned you. Your house, your car.”
“And you are his type,” Beck continued. “When he was finished wiping you out financially, he would have killed you. He knows your schedule, your habits, had gained your trust. He’d have gotten you alone and done to you what he did to Ms. Ramos.”
“But you’re alive. You’re the first one of his victims we’ve been able to speak with.”
“I have to—” She shoved up, dashed to the half bath. When she was finished being sick, she splashed water on her face, scooped more out of the faucet to clear her mouth and throat.
In the mirror she saw a ghost of herself, sheet white, glassy eyes. Now that the sickness passed, all she had was numb.
She went back, lowered into the chair. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I know this is a shock,” Morrison began. “I know this is a very, very difficult time. Can we call someone for you?”
“No. What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re the first we’ve been able to interview,” Beck repeated. “The only survivor we know of. We need you to tell us everything you can remember. What he did, what he said. You said he texted you, so we’d like to copy those. Regarding the identity theft, your situation? I’d advise you to hire a lawyer as soon as possible to try to deal with that.”
“With what?” she demanded. “I’m broke. He came into the bar on a Tuesday night,” she remembered, and told them everything she could think of.
It got worse, and kept getting worse.
Over the next six weeks, the full extent of the damage Gavin Rozwell wrought dropped hard. He’d managed to reroute her last mortgage payment, sucked up her last two direct deposit paychecks—one from each job. He’d run up her credit card to the tune of $8,321.85 as well as taking out two more major cards for a total there that hit over fifteen thousand.
He’d taken out a home equity loan on her house, in her name, using all her financial data. Her careful, hard-won home improvements had increased the value of her house since she’d purchased it, and her credit score was excellent. He’d taken out the maximum allowed, and had walked away with twenty-five thousand. And that in addition to a business start-up loan he’d wrangled, with her home as collateral, for another twenty-five thousand.
He shouldn’t have been able to get two loans, two different lenders, but he’d done it—as she learned he’d done it before.
The insurance payment on her stolen car barely covered the amount she owed on it.
She had nothing left but debt, legal tangles, and grief.
Worse, somehow worse, he’d used the MacBook to wipe out Nina’s meager savings in the hours between her death and when Morgan found her.
She had no pride left to swallow when she called her grandmother and asked for money to hire a lawyer.
Though both her employers offered her financial help, that she couldn’t swallow.
And though it shamed her, she accepted the offer of Nina’s car.
She had to work, and needed transportation to get there.
She planted no garden that summer.
On a Sunday morning in mid-July, she learned of yet another loan taken in her name when two men came to the house.
One look told her: bill collectors, so she turned off the lawn mower and waited.
“Looking for Morgan Albright.”
“I’m Morgan Albright.”
The two men exchanged a look. “Don’t look like him.”
“Because I’m not a him,” she said wearily. “If this is about the equity loan, the business loan, the credit card charges, my lawyer’s handling it.”
“You’re overdue, Morgan. Mr. Castle lent you the twenty in good faith. Full payment and interest due July first. Interest’s doubling every day since the first.”
“I don’t know a Mr. Castle, and he didn’t lend me anything. I’m dealing with identity theft, and can give you the contact for my lawyer and the FBI agents investigating.”
“Mr. Castle’s not interested in your problems, lady. Morgan Albright took the money, Morgan Albright pays.”
“How about you give us ten percent, show of good faith,” the second man suggested. “You don’t want any trouble.”
They might as well have asked her for the moon and a couple of planets.
“I have nothing but trouble! I don’t have ten percent of anything because he took everything. You’re looking for a man named Gavin Rozwell. He took this Mr. Castle’s money.”
She threw up her hands. “I work two jobs and I can barely cover the bills. I’ve got lawyer’s fees piling up because he took out two other loans in my name, and it’s a nightmare. For God’s sake, he beat and strangled my friend. Go find him. Go find the son of a bitch because it doesn’t look like the cops can.”
“That’s some story. It’s going to buy you a week. Things won’t be so polite when we come back.”
She called the police, she called the special agents.
And the next morning she found the tires slashed on Nina’s car.
Tears were finished. She might have trembled all the way to work, but tears were finished. She didn’t tell Bill, or anyone but the police. Even the idea of talking about it exhausted her.
To help make the mortgage—nobody wanted to rent a murdered woman’s room—she took extra shifts on Monday nights.
A gift from the boss, she knew, as she wasn’t needed.
Rather than biking home, changing, maybe making a sandwich, she’d grabbed her bar clothes after she’d seen the tires. She changed in the bathroom at Greenwald’s, did what she could with her makeup.
It would mean biking home after midnight, but she had reflectors and a headlight. It’s fine, she told herself.
She served locals, mixed drinks for tourists.
A man sat on an empty stool. Stocky build, mid-fifties, ink-black hair worn with a hint of wave. He wore a baby-blue golf shirt—Lacoste—and summer-weight khakis.
“Nice evening,” he said.
“It certainly is. What can I get you?”
“Bombay and tonic, twist of lime. Nice place,” he added as he looked around. “Got a nice feel to it.”
“We think so. First time in?”
“Yep. Just passing through. From the area, are you?”
“I am now.” When she served his drink, he laid a piece of notepaper with a number on it. “That’s what he owes me as of today.” Then he held up a hand. “I didn’t bring you any trouble. Came here to have a one-on-one, public place.”
Her throat clicked as she tried, and failed, to swallow. “I don’t have any money.”
“I said this”—he tapped the paper—“is what he owes me. Not you. He screwed over both of us. My employees brought me your story. I get a lot of sad stories, lots of bullshit stories, but yours checked out.”
He lifted his drink, watching her as he sipped. “Nice pour on the Bombay. So, I’m telling you, you won’t have any trouble on my end.” He put the paper back in his pocket. “It’s not your debt to pay. Didn’t seem right to add that to your list of troubles, so you can cross it off.”
He drank some more. “He gave me a sad story. He’s got a way with a story. No need to go into it. Pisses me off. Your name, your address, where you work. Both jobs. Anything about him you know I didn’t read in the news reports and such?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t read any of it. I couldn’t.”
He just nodded. “I read about your friend, saw her picture. Beautiful girl. Only sick fuckers do that to beautiful girls.”
He took out a money clip, peeled off two fifties.
“We’re clear, you and me. My word on it, and my word’s good. I’m sorry for your troubles.”
“Mr. Castle.” She nudged the bills toward him. “This is too much.”
He shook his head. “I pay my debts,” he said, and walked out.
When she stepped out of the house the next morning, Nina’s car had four new tires.